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Ugly Sisters in King Lear - or - Avoiding Love - or - Devastating Masculinity - or -

Explore the themes of order, chaos, and family dynamics in Shakespeare's King Lear through the lens of the 1976 RSC production directed by Trevor Nunn, the 1982 RSC production directed by Adrian Noble, and the 1990 National Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner.

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Ugly Sisters in King Lear - or - Avoiding Love - or - Devastating Masculinity - or -

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  1. Ugly Sisters in King Lear - or - Avoiding Love - or - Devastating Masculinity - or - The End of Civilisation (In which the King orders the division of the kingdom ‘that future strife may be prevented now’ and William Shakespeare foresees nuclear winter) -

  2. ‘[from] the discrepancy of degrees … proceedeth order: which in things as well natural as supernatural hath ever had such a pre-eminence, that thereby the incomprehensible majesty of God, as it were by a bright light of a torch or candle, is declared to the blind inhabitants of this world. Moreover take away order from all things, what should then remain? Certainly, nothing finally except … chaos’ (Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governor, 1530). ‘Take but degree away, untune that string And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets In mere oppugnancy’ (Ulysses, Troilus and Cressida 1.3.109-111)

  3. King Lear, RSC 1976 directed by Trevor Nunn (Donald Sinden: Lear; Judi Dench: Regan ‘tis now our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age / Conferring them on younger strengths while we / Unburdened crawl toward death’; ‘now we will divest us both of rule/ Interest of territory, cares of state’ (1.1.49-50)

  4. King Lear, RSC 1982, directed by Adrian Noble (Lear: Michael Gambon; Gonerial: Sara Kestelman; Regan: Jenny Agutter; Cordelia: Alice Krige; Pete Postelethwaite: Cornwall; David Bradley, Albany)

  5. King Lear, National Theatre, 1990 directed by Deborah Warner (Lear: Brian Cox; Fool: David Bradley; Cordelia: Eve Matheson)

  6. King Lear RSC 1993, directed by Adrian Noble (Lear: Robert Stephens, Kent:David Calder)

  7. Lear and Fool: NT 1990 (David Bradley, Brian Cox ‘now we will divest us both of rule/ Interest of territory, cares of state’ (1.1.49-50)

  8. Lear and Fool, RSC 1982, 1.4 (Antony Sher, Michael Gambon) Lear: Dost thou call me fool, boy? Fool: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with. (1.4.141-2)

  9. Lear and Fool, RSC 1982, Antony Sher, Michael Gambon Fool: If thou wert my fool, uncle, I’d have thee beaten for being old before thy time. Lear: How’s that? Fool: Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. Lear: O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heave. I would not be mad (1.5.38-44).

  10. ‘Then let them anatomise Regan; see what breeds about her heart’ (3.6.70-71). RSC 1993. (Edgar: Simon Russell Beale; Lear: Robert Stephens; Kent/Caius: David Calder; Fool: Ian Hughes)

  11. ‘Arraign her first; tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor king her father’ (3.6.43-4). RSC 1982 (Lear: Michael Gambon; Fool: Antony Sher; Edgar: Jonathan Hyde.

  12. Lear (Brian Cox) and soldiers on Dover Beach. NT 1990.

  13. ‘Dost thou squiny at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid. I’ll not love’ (4.6.134). RSC, 2010, directed by David Farr. (Lear: Greg Hicks; Gloucester: Geoffrey Freshwater)

  14. . Tell me, my daughters … … weHave no such daughter, nor shall ever seeThat face of hers again. Go you and tell my daughter I would speak with her. How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too much of late i’ th’ frown. Are you our daughter? … Your name, fair gentlewoman. Yet have I left a daughter … Dost thou understand me, man? The King would speak with Cornwall. The dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends service. Ask her forgiveness? “Dear daughter, I confess that I am old. Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food”. I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad. Do not laugh at me,For, as I am a man, I think this ladyTo be my child Cordelia.

  15. Goneril and ReganTalawa 2016 RakieAyola, Debbie Korley Goneril and Regan, National Theatre 2014, Kate Fleetwood Anna Maxwell Martin

  16. ‘One side will mock the another.The other too’ (3.7.72). RSC 1976. (Gloucester: Tony Church; Regan Judi Dench).

  17. Blinding of Gloucester, National Theatre, 1990 directed by Deborah Warner Blinding of Gloucester, RSC 1982 directed by Adrian Noble. (Gloucester: David Waller; Regan: Jenny Agutter; Cornwall: Pete Postlethwaite).

  18. Blind Gloucester (David Waller) and Edgar (Jonathan Hyde), RSC 1982 directed by Adrian Noble.

  19. Prospect Theatre, 1978

  20. ‘Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones’ (5.3.256). RSC 1992. Lear (Robert Stephens); Cordelia (Abigail McKern); Soldier (Peter Bygott)

  21. ‘A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever! Cordelia. Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha! Her voice was ever soft Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman’ (5.3.268-272). RSC 1990 directed by Nicholas Hytner. (Lear: John Wood; Cordelia Alex Kingston; Kent: David Troughton).

  22. Pray you undo this button. Thank you sir. Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips, Look there, look there! RSC 1976 directed by Trevor Nunn (Lear: Donald Sinden), Cordelia: Cherie Lunghi; Kent: Bob Peck)

  23. ‘I am a man More sinned against than sinning’ (Lear, 3.2.59-60). ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, They kill us for their sport’ (Gloucester, 4.1.37-38) Two men, two fathers, two households, two faults, two journeys … The abuse of power, of language, of family, of children Trip switches: slow burn vs. touch paper Lear: ‘Thy truth then be thy dower…’ Gloucester: ‘The whoreson must be acknowledged.’

  24. Lay him to rest, the royal Lear with whom generations of star actors have made us reverently familiar; the majestic ancient, wronged and maddened by his vicious daughters; the felled giant, beside whose bulk the other characters crouch like pygmies. Lay also to rest the archaic notion that Lear is automatically entitled to our sympathy because he is a king who suffers. A great director (Peter Brook) has scanned the text with fresh eyes and discovered a new protagonist – not the booming, righteously indignant Titan or old, but an edgy, capricious old man, intensely difficult to live with. In short, he has dared to direct King Lear from a standpoint of moral neutrality. The results are revolutionary. Instead of assuming that Lear is right, and therefore pitiable, we are forced to make judgments – to decide between his claims and those of his kin. And the balance, in this uniquely magnanimous production, is almost even. Though he disposes of his kingdom, Lear insists on retaining authority; he wants to exercise power without responsibility, without fulfilling his part of the feudal contract. He is wilfully arrogant, and deserves much of what he gets. … a beloved character [is] seen from a strange and unlovely angle … Gloucester, so often Lear's understudy and rival moaner, has taken on a separate identity: a shifty old rake and something of a trimmer, capable of switching his allegiance from Lear to Cornwall and back again .. Conversely, the daughters are not fiends (Kenneth Tynan, The Observer, 11 November 1962).

  25. Lear: So young and so untender? Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true. Lear: Well, let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower, For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs From whom we do exist and cease to be, Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite shall to my bosom Be as well neighboured, pitied and relieved, As thou my sometime daughter… I loved her most, and thought to set my rest On her kind nursery. Hence and avoid my sight. So be my grave my peace, as here I give Her father’s heart from her (1.1.107-127). [Lear: Nothing will come of nothing speak again. Cordelia: Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth (1.1.90-92).]

  26. OED DEMONSTRATE: [stem of demonstrare to point out, show, prove; monstrareto show, point out. 1. To point out, indicate; to exhibit, set forth. [Shakespeare Henry V: ‘Description cannot suit itself in words, / To demonstrate the life of such a battle’.] 2. To make known or exhibit by outward indications; to manifest, show, display. [Shakespeare, As You Like It: ‘Everything about you demonstrating careless desolation’.] 4. To show or make evident by reasoning; to establish the truth of (a proposition, etc.) by a process of argument or deduction; to prove beyond the possibility of doubt. [Shakespeare, Othello: ‘This may help to thicken other proofs / That do demonstrate thinly’.] OED DEMONSTRATION: 2. A display, show, manifestation, exhibition, expression. 3b. That which serves as proof or evidence; an indubitable proof. OED MONSTER: from OF monstre, ad. L monstrum, monster, something marvellous; originally a divine portent or warning, f. root of monere, to warn.

  27. Fathers who make their children monsters … Cordelia as ‘ugly sister’ ‘This is most strange, / That she … should / Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle / So many folds of favour’ (1.1.217) ‘Sure her offence / Must be of such unnatural degree / That monsters it’ (1.1.219). ‘O villain, villain … Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain – worse than brutish … He cannot be such a monster’ (1.2.74) ‘To take’t again perforce -- monster ingratitude!’ (1.5.39) ‘If she [Regan] live long / And in the end meet the old course of death, / Women will all turn monsters’ (3.7.102). ‘Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed? / A father … / Most barbarous, most degenerate, you have madded…/ If that the heavens do not their visible spirits / Send quickly down to tame these vile offences: / It will come: Humanity must perforce prey on itself, / Like monsters of the deep’ (4.2.41). ‘Proper deformity shows not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman…for shame / Be-monster not thy feature’ (4.2.60)

  28. A-voiding love Devastating masculinity: ‘Speak’ Grotesque inversions: men who cannot see, cannot hear… Losing language / Evacuating cultural space of male utterance -- Kent: speech defused; borrowed accents; acoustic disguise -- Edgar: multiple transformations, from Bedlam Beggar to West country ‘churl’ -- Lear: from commanding ‘Speak’ to learning to curse; becoming ‘woman’ : ‘how this mother swells up toward my heart! Hystericapassio, down, thou climbing sorrow’, 2.2.245); ‘Deny to speak with me?’ (2.2.277); ‘I will have such revenges on you both That all the world shall – I will do such things – What they are yet I know not but they shall be The terrors of the earth!’ (2.2.468); ‘Howl, howl, howl, howl’.

  29. Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips, Look there, look there!

  30. Yet better thus, and known to be contemned Than still contemned and flattered. To be worst, The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best, The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace; The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Owes nothing to thy blasts. But who comes here? My father, poorly led? World, world, O, world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age… O gods! Who is’t can say “I am at the worst”? I am worse than e’er I was. And worse I may be yet; the worst is not So long as we can say “This is the worst” (Edgar, 4.1.1-13, 27-30).

  31. ‘Thy life’s a miracle…Therefore thou happy father, Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours Of men’s impossibilities have preserved thee. … Bear free and patient thoughts’ (Edgar, 4.6.55…72-74, 80). [What are you?] ‘A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows, Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows, Am pregnant to good pity’ (Edgar, 4.6.216-218). ‘Men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all. Come on’ (Edgar, 5.2.9-11). ‘The oldest hath borne most;we that are young Shall never see so much nor live so long’ (Edgar, 5.3.324).

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